|pv/;v  OF 

BISHOP  WILSON 


BEFORE  THE 


NORTH  CAROLINA  CONFERENCE 

Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South 


EPWORTH  LEAGUE  NIGHT 
December  10,  1908 


DURHAM,  NORTH  CAROLINA 


Pamphlet  Collection 
Duke  Dwinity  School 


ADDRESS 

OF 

BISHOP  WILSON 

BEFORE  THE 


NORTH  CAROLINA  CONFERENCE 

Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South 

e 

EPWORTH  LEAGUE  NIGHT 

December  10,  1908,  Durham,  N.  C. 


Nashville,  Tenn.  ;  Dallas,  Tex. 
Pullishing  House  of  the  M.  E.  Church,  South 
Smith  &  Lamar,  Agents 
1909 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2014 


https://archive.org/details/addressbeforenorOOwils 


ADDRESS  OF  BISHOP  WILSON 


I  am  put  now  and  then  at  rather  an  unaccustomed 
work,  and  I  am  half  inclined  to  do  what  I  have  never 
done  yet,  never  want  to  do — apologize.  I  have  to 
make  confession  that  I  have  been  brought  into  contact 
with  the  Epworth  League  work  of  the  Church  less 
than  with  any  other  department.  It  has  so  happened 
that  the  mission  work  has  engrossed  my  attention, 
thought,  and  labor.  I  have  responded  almost  to  every 
call  that  has  been  made  upon  me,  but  for  some  reason 
or  other  this  is  about  the  first  time  that  I  have  been 
asked  to  make  an  Epworth  League  speech;  so  I  am 
raw  at  the  business.  You  will  have  to  excuse  one  of 
my  age  appearing  under  such  conditions;  and  if  the 
speech  does  not  measure  up  to  all  of  the  demands, 
charge  it  to  the  account  of  those  who  were  so  misled 
as  to  invite  me. 

But  I  want  you  to  understand  that  it  is  not  because 
I  take  no  interest  in  the  Epworth  League  work.  I 
have  watched  its  work  from  afar.  We  ought  to  give 
it  a  good  deal  more  interest  and  concern ;  and  the  more 
I  think  of  it  and  the  more  I  look  at  it,  the  more  pro- 
foundly it  moves  me.  I  sometimes  wonder  what  St. 
Paul  would  say,  would  think,  would  feel  if  he  should 
suddenly  drop  into  the  midst  of  this  world's  life  of 
to-day.  I  have  often  thought  that  if  he  should  drop 
down  into  the  Church  of  to-day  he  would  assume  natu- 


3 


rally  and  inevitably  the  leadership  of  the  Christian  hosts. 
I  can  imagine  what  his  thoughts  would  be;  I  can  im- 
agine his  feelings — such  a  paean  of  triumph  that  never 
was  heard  from  human  hearts  would  go  up  from  him. 
I  cannot  imagine  exactly  what  he  would  do.  I  am  not 
great  enough,  and  he  has  not  given  us  enough  of  his 
active  operations  to  let  us  know  what  he  would  do. 
I  am  not  speaking  of  his  operations  as  at  all  narrow 
or  defective.  He  left  nothing  out  from  the  day  that 
he  saw  the  vision  in  Damascus  until  he  stood  before 
Caesar's  bar  and  preached  the  gospel  so  that  all  the 
Gentiles  might  hear.  He  never  rested.  I  do  not  think 
he  even  rested  in  his  sleep ;  he  had  dreams  that  were 
recorded  in  his  Epistles,  and  they  were  dreams  of  the 
Church's  future  history.  He  saw  visions  that  no  man 
of  his  time  could  see  ;  but  if  that  great-souled  man, 
with  his  marvelous  insight  into  human  needs  and  hu- 
man conditions,  with  his  extraordinary  conceptions  of 
his  Master's  greatness,  of  his  Master's  purposes,  of 
his  Master's  work,  were  to  drop  into  our  midst,  I  think 
that  undoubtedly  he  would  assume  entirely  the  leader- 
ship of  God's  Church.  He  would  stir  it  up  into  such 
a  spirit  of  aggressiveness  and  infuse  into  it  such  ele- 
ments of  power  as  would  come  from  his  apostolic 
leadership. 

I  think  two  things  would  have  especially  attracted 
his  attention — one  a  realization  of  his  own  notion  of 
the  perseverance  of  the  Church  and  its  gospel.  We 
have  got  to  the  point  now  where  we  are  beginning  to 
have  some  idea  of  what  he  meant  when  he  talked  about 
Jesus  Christ  as  "Lord  of  all,"  and  when  he  prophesied 
the  getting  hold  of  all  the  various  lines  of  human  activ- 
ities and  bringing  them  in  front  of  the  Lord  that  he 
might  use  them.    We  are  beginning  to  see  that  there 

4 


is  nothing  in  this  God-given  and  God-ordered  world 
of  ours  that  does  not  belong  to  the  Church  of  Jesus 
Christ  and  ought  not  to  be  used  for  its  purposes.  We 
have  gone  into  business;  we  have  gone  into  all  the 
great  enterprises  of  the  world ;  we  have  gone  even  into 
politics  and  got  hold  of  the  politicians.  [Laughter.] 
Now,  you  may  laugh  at  that;  but  the  time  is  coming, 
and  it  is  not  far  distant,  when  the  highest  distinction 
that  a  man  can  enjoy  will  be  that  he  is  a  Christian 
politician.  It  is  no  disgrace  to  be  a  politician.  Don't 
think  that.  Sometimes  we  feel  that  a  man  is  disgraced 
because  of  the  fact  that  he  is  a  politician.  A  few 
years  ago  I  was  preaching  at  a  camp  meeting  in  Vir- 
ginia upon  some  of  my  old  camping  grounds,  and 
along  beside  me  in  the  stand  sat  one  of  my  old  sup- 
porters and  helpers  in  the  days  of  my  early  ministry, 
a  man  eighty  years  of  age  and  a  born  politician — 
never  could  have  been  anything  else  except  a  politi- 
cian to  save  his  life,  and  yet  a  man  of  stainless  integ- 
rity and  against  whose  fair  name  I  have  never  heard  a 
word  of  complaint.  That  man  sat  there  and  shouted 
the  praises  of  God  with  as  much  earnestness  as  he 
ever  had  a  speech  on  the  hustings.  When  I  was  pastor 
of  a  Church  in  Washington  City,  I  had  a  lot  of  poli- 
ticians coming  to  my  services — members  of  the  House 
and  of  the  Senate  from  various  parts  of  the  country. 
There  was  one  man  among  them  whom  I  could  have 
trusted  as  I  would  one  of  the  apostles.  He  not  only 
came  to  church  Sunday  mornings,  but  he  came  Sunday 
nights,  and  Wednesday  nights  to  prayer  meeting;  and 
if  I  gave  him  anything  to  do  on  the  committee,  he  was 
there  ready  to  render  any  service  to  the  Church  that 
he  could  render  and  at  whatever  cost.  You  could  trust 
him  to  the  last  minute.    He  was  a  Christian  politician. 

5 


[Cries  of  "Amen!  Amen!"]  He  could  not  have 
been  anything  else  except  a  politician;  but  he  was  a 
sanctified  politician.  We  are  going  to  have  repre- 
sentatives in  the  White  House,  we  are  going  to  have 
Christian  politicians  in  the  House  and  in  the  Senate 
in  years  to  come  who  will  acknowledge  the  Church  as 
the  supreme  factor  in  human  life,  and  the  lordship  of 
Jesus  Christ  will  be  proclaimed  by  the  Chief  Justice 
of  the  Supreme  Court.  We  are  going  to  take  posses- 
sion of  the  whole  business,  from  the  ground  up,  and 
we  want  the  world  to  know  it.  St.  Paul  would  have 
given  utterances  of  his  exuberance  of  joy  at  seeing  the 
Church  daring  to  assert  its  lordship  of  all.  He  would 
have  exulted  in  it. 

There  are  some  business  men  who  believe  that  Christ 
ought  to  come  into  their  business  as  a  partner.  They 
do  not  do  anything  to  drive  him  out.  There  are  some 
politicians  who  are  ready  to  recognize  him  as  their 
leader  and  a  great  lawgiver.  We  have  men  in  the 
large  enterprises  of  our  commercial  life  who  say  to 
the  world  distinctly:  "You  cannot  come  in  here  while 
I  have  to  do  with  this  thing."  We  had  one  man  in 
New  York  who  said  that  he  was  not  going  to  defile 
himself  with  the  association  of  anything  of  the  sort. 
We  are  going  to  take  possession  of  that  kind  of  life. 

In  this  work  the  Church  has  stood  first  of  all.  Of 
course  we  want  men  and  women  who  will  take  care  of 
the  local  concerns;  and  until  a  comparatively  late 
period  we  did  not  go  much  beyond  that.  We  were 
looking  after  our  own  affairs;  we  were  only  intent 
upon  cultivating  our  own  potato  patch.  I  remember 
how  it  was  thirty  years  ago  when  I  first  went  into  the 
mission  work.  It  was  the  hardest  thing  I  ever  under- 
took.   I  had  to  dig  down  to  get  a  consciousness,  and 

6 


it  was  a  mighty  hard  thing  to  do.  Then  we  were  bent 
only  on  local  affairs.  We  had  our  home  missions, 
and  had  to  take  care  of  everything  right  around  our 
own  doors ;  but,  bless  your  life,  we  cannot  live  without 
the  work  that  lies  beyond  our  call.  Then  by  and  by 
we  began  to  think  about  the  thing,  and  the  women 
started  up  and  said  they  had  a  hand  in  this  affair. 
Despite  their  wonderful  sympathies,  women  are  some- 
times very  self-asserting,  and  the  men  became  uneasy. 
[Laughter.]  There  are  multitudes  of  women  and 
children  far  from  our  home  who  do  not  know  Christ 
and  who  are  reduced  to  slavery.  The  women  said  we 
must  try  to  save  them ;  so  they  organized  and  went  to 
work. 

Then  the  women  said  we  must  have  the  children 
organized  into  juvenile  societies;  we  must  get  their 
pennies  to  help  the  cause.  Then  they  went  to  work  to 
get  hold  of  the  Sunday  schools  on  a  somewhat  larger 
scale.  Then  the  women  got  into  the  home  mission; 
and  by  that  time  the  men  began  to  feel  that  they  had 
not  come  up  to  their  part  as  the  male  representatives 
and  heads  of  the  household,  and  they  were  getting  to 
be  uneasy.  By  and  by  they  said:  "We  must  get  into 
this  thing  and  get  to  work."  So  they  met  in  Chatta- 
nooga last  April,  a  thousand  of  them,  to  stir  up  the 
Church  and  the  world  incidentally.  And  you  know 
what  has  come  of  it.  They  began  the  Laymen's  Mis- 
sionary Movement. 

The  Church  has  said  that  there  is  no  department  of 
work  that  we  are  not  going  to  get  hold  of.  We  want 
the  young  men,  the  young  women,  and  the  young  chil- 
dren to  take  hold  of  this  thing.  "And  it  shall  come  to 
pass  in  the  last  days,  saith  God,  I  will  pour  out  of  my 
Spirit  upon  all  flesh :  and  your  sons  and  your  daughters 

7 


shall  prophesy,  and  your  young  men  shall  see  visions, 
and  your  old  men  shall  dream  dreams :  and  on  my  serv- 
ants and  on  my  handmaidens  I  will  pour  out  in  those 
days  of  my  Spirit;  and  they  shall  prophesy."  There 
will  be  no  classes  excluded.  We  have  got  the  children 
working  and  have  a  great  hold  upon  the  young  people. 

About  two  thousand  young  people,  you  say?  This 
is  not  all  of  the  young  people  we  have,  is  it?  About 
sixty  Leagues,  I  believe.  How  many  charges  ?  About 
two  hundred?  So  you  see  the  proportion.  Well,  we 
have  just  begun,  you  see.  I  am  glad  you  found  the 
report  that  has  just  been  read  encouraging.  I  am 
not  going  to  discourage  you,  for  we  are  going  to 
get  hold  of  a  vast  deal  more  than  that.  You  may  be 
sure  of  it.  [Cries  of  "Amen!  Amen!"]  We  cannot 
afford  to  neglect  those  things  which  St.  Paul  would 
have  undertaken.  We  do  not  send  our  sons  to  college 
to  learn  theories  alone  or  merely  to  learn  to  run  a  ma- 
chine. They  go  to  college  and  graduate  and  then  take 
off  their  fine  clothes  and  their  patent  leather  shoes 
and  put  on  their  working  clothes  and  begin  in  the  dust, 
darkness,  and  dirt  of  the  shops;  and  they  stay  there 
until  they  have  learned  everything  thoroughly.  It  is 
by  practical  experience  that  they  learn. 

I  remember  that  in  my  early  youth,  when  I  was  noth- 
ing but  a  Church  member,  I  went  to  class  meetings 
and  talked  with  men  about  my  religious  life  and  had 
them  talk  to  me,  and  we  used  to  hold  little  prayer 
meetings  around  in  private  homes.  Now  and  then 
there  was  a  family  to  be  visited  in  which  there  was 
some  member  who  could  not  go  to  church.  We  would 
often  hold  prayers  in  the  home,  and  every  night  I 
was  doing  some  work  of  the  sort.  In  that  way  I  got 
my  training.    This  is  what  we  want  to  do  with  the 

8 


young  people  of  the  Church.  We  want  to  get  them  to 
work.  What  if  we  had  known  fifty  years  ago  how  to 
do  this  work!  What  a  magnificent  thing  would  have 
been  done!  If  we  had  had  the  Epworth  League  fifty 
years  ago,  we  would  have  gone  ahead  with  leaps  and 
bounds  and  accomplished  far  greater  things.  We 
have  done  wonderful  things  considering  the  time,  I 
admit. 

Young  men,  you  have  the  most  magnificent  field  and 
the  best  that  has  ever  been  afforded.  I  had  rather 
have  a  young  man's  opportunity  to-day  than  the  world 
that  lay  before  Napoleon's  feet  at  his  command.  Let 
the  members  of  the  Church  work  together,  and  there 
is  nothing  on  earth  that  can  resist  it  when  you  get  the 
body  of  the  young  people  of  the  Church  organized. 
Then  you  will  see  such  sights  as  the  world  has  never 
seen  before — I  was  about  to  say  since  the  apostolic 
days.  But  the  apostles  never  saw  such  sights  as  they 
would  be.  You  do  not  know  what  is  to  come ;  but  this 
is  what  we  want  and  this  is  what  we  must  have.  It  is 
the  wisest  thing  the  Church  has  done  in  recent  years. 
The  great  Master  of  us  all,  who  knew  how  to  adjust 
the  material  to  humanity's  needs,  wants  to  get  hold  of 
the  childhood  of  the  Church.  When  the  Saviour  laid 
his  hands  upon  childhood  and  blessed  it  and  said,  "Of 
such  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven,"  he  did  not  mean  to 
leave  any  element  of  that  childhood  out.  He  got  hold 
of  the  young  ruler,  you  will  remember;  and  when  he 
said  to  him,  "Follow  me,"  quitting  everything  else,  he 
meant  that  the  youth  of  the  Church  should  be  brought 
into  subservience  to  his  will  that  he  might  work  out 
with  this  great  energy  his  plans  and  purposes  for  the 
uplifting  of  the  world.  He  wanted  their  vigor,  their 
enthusiasm,  their  warm  blood,  their  splendid  imagina- 

9 


tions.  And  it  takes  these  things  to  bring  one  into  the 
consciousness  of  a  personal  relationship  to  God. 

The  Epworth  League  is  not  a  small  thing;  and  to 
tell  you  the  truth  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  until  we 
get  the  young  people  of  the  Church  conscious  of  their 
relation  to  God  and  pledged  directly  to  Jesus  Christ — 
till  we  can  do  this  we  cannot  hope  to  achieve  the  ends 
of  the  Church.  The  time  is  coming;  we  must  have  it. 
I  am  surprised  that  the  Sunday  school  has  done  so 
much,  considering  the  fact  that  it  has  given  only  three- 
quarters  of  an  hour  once  each  week.  It  is  no  fault  of 
the  Sunday  school  that  no  more  has  been  accomplished, 
for  this  much  time  cannot  revolutionize  the  lives  of 
the  children.  We  must  do  better  than  that.  I  do  not 
wonder  that  the  people  in  New  York  tried  to  get  the 
authorities  to  allow  one-half  a  day  to  instruct  the  chil- 
dren religiously  during  the  week.  They  will  get  it 
some  day,  too.  [Cries  of  "Amen!  Amen!"]  In  the 
Sunday  school  there  has  been  a  great  wealth  of  intel- 
lect and  spiritual  power.  Look  how  these  men  meet 
each  year  to  get  their  lessons  ready.  Look  how  the 
grade  of  teachers  gets  higher  and  higher  every  year. 
The  Sunday  school  feeds  the  Church;  yet  this  fact 
alone  is  more  or  less  insignificant.  Put  it  alongside 
the  possibilities  of  the  Epworth  League,  and  it  will 
show  insignificance.  Great  things  will  be  seen  by  and 
by  when  we  have  given  more  thought  and  more  prayer 
to  our  Epworth  League  movement ;  but  before  we  can 
do  this  we  must  have  the  imagination  of  the  young 
people. 

There  is  a  point,  however,  in  life  where  this  faculty 
fails  us.  The  literary  fellows  cultivate  it  and  put  it 
in  shape  for  our  amusement,  and  the  dreamers  who 
never  did  anything  practical  cultivate  it.    But  when  a 

10 


man  gets  into  business,  the  time  soon  comes  when  he 
discredits  this  imagination.  The  time  comes  when 
men  throw  it  away  and  say  it  is  visionary.  But  the 
loftiest  man  on  earth  is  the  man  who  can  imagine  most 
splendidly.  I  want  you  to  understand  that  the  Church 
of  God  has  such  a  tremendous  force  with  its  far-reach- 
ing influences  in  its  purposes  and  efforts  that  the  loft- 
iest imagination  of  the  greatest  genius  of  the  earth 
cannot  compass  it.  Shakespeare  was  the  finest  speci- 
men of  mere  human  intellect  that  this  world  has  ever 
seen.  He  was  a  wonderful  man,  and  he  occasionally 
got  glimpses  and  visions  of  something  beyond.  But 
Shakespeare  stands  a  mere  fool  with  St.  Paul's  vision 
of  the  third  heaven.  Contrast  the  finest  of  Shakespeare 
with,  say,  a  Psalm  of  David :  "The  heavens  declare  the 
glory  of  God  ;  and  the  firmament  showeth  his  handiwork. 
Day  unto  day  uttereth  speech,  and  night  unto  night 
showeth  knowledge.  There  is  no  speech  nor  language, 
where  their  voice  is  not  heard."  You  can  almost  see 
the  Psalmist  as  he  stands  there.  He  must  have  heard 
the  chorus  of  the  heavens.  Shakespeare,  too,  must 
have  known  something  of  this,  for  he  said : 

There's  not  the  smallest  orb  which  thou  beholdest 
But  in  his  motion  like  an  angel  sings, 
Still  quiring  to  the  young-eyed  cherubins. 
Such  harmony  is  in  immortal  souls ; 
But  whilst  this  muddy  vesture  of  decay 
Doth  grossly  close  it  in,  we  cannot  hear  it. 

But,  after  all  the  heights  to  which  he  has  carried  you, 
you  have  not  touched  the  skirts  of  his  garment,  so 
splendid  is  it  all.  We  want  imagination.  We  cannot 
do  without  it.    Cultivate  it. 

Young  men,  we  are  going  to  put  you  on  ground 
where  you  have  never  been  before — ground  never  hith- 

ii 


erto  explored  by  the  scientist  and  the  investigator.  We 
are  going  to  open  up  to  you  the  unsurpassable  riches 
of  Christ,  and  we  want  you  to  take  and  enlarge  them 
in  your  thought.  I  do  not  know  whether  you  have 
reached  it  yet  or  not ;  but  whenever  you  kill  the  im- 
agination of  the  young  men,  you  take  away  their  vision. 
It  must  be  cultivated.  Young  men,  we  are  going  to 
take  you  into  fields  of  activity  that  have  never  been 
exploited  by  commercial  enterprises,  into  regions  of 
life  never  explored  by  any  intellect.  We  are  going  to 
lead  you  down  into  the  mines  of  wealth  that  have  never 
been  opened  by  the  enterprising  pioneers  of  the  world. 
And  all  these  things  are  for  you. 

We  want  the  young  men  to  stay  young,  and  to  stay 
young  to  the  very  last  limit  of  life.  I  thank  God  I 
have  never  given  up  my  dreams  of  the  future.  [Cries 
of  "Amen  !  Amen !"]  My  imaginations  of  the  life  be- 
yond I  have  never  given  up,  and  never  intend  to.  I 
do  not  intend  to  lose  my  youth,  for  God  is  the  strength 
of  my  heart  and  my  portion  forever.  [Cries  of 
"Amen!"]  Gray  hairs  may  come  and  failing  flesh, 
but  God — and  you  cannot  tell  how  big  that  word  is — 
is  the  strength  of  my  soul. 

This  is  why  we  want  the  young  people.  We  want 
them  to  keep  alive  and  we  want  their  energy  and  zeal, 
for  the  Church  needs  them.  We  need  the  imagination 
of  the  young  man.  He  will  put  more  zeal  and  energy 
in  a  football  game  than  you  do  in  a  whole  year's  work 
in  the  ministry.  [Laughter.]  You  know  that.  Well, 
why  shouldn't  he?  I  have  no  defense  of  the  game. 
It  is  a  game  of  risk — brutal,  I  admit;  but  it  tries  his 
nerves,  sets  them  all  tingling  at  once,  and  he  will  dare 
anything.  For  when  a  young  fellow  goes  into  that 
sort  of  thing,  he  cannot  help  himself.    Just  stir  him 

12 


with  those  higher  things  and  let  him  catch  a  glimpse 
of  the  nobler,  and  nothing  will  stop  him.  He  will 
climb  the  inaccessible,  where  a  goat  could  not  get  a 
foothold.  [Laughter.]  But  he  will  get  there.  "Per 
aspera  ad  astral  is  his  motto.  We  want  just  that  sort 
of  energy  for  Church  work,  and  we  are  going  to  get 
it.    [Cries  of  "Amen !  Amen!"] 

Your  mothers  and  fathers  have  lost  that  inspiration 
nowadays.  The  young  mother  looks  down  in  wonder 
on  her  sleeping  babe,  and  wonders  what  its  dreams 
can  be.  She  imagines  the  beautiful  sentiment  oi 
Wordsworth : 

Not  in  entire  forgetfulness, 

And  not  in  utter  nakedness, 

But  trailing  clouds  of  glory,  do  we  come 

From  God,  who  is  our  home : 

Heaven  lies  about  us  in  our  infancy. 

The  mother  cannot  enter  into  full  sympathy  with  her 
own  baby,  and  as  the  child  grows  the  dim  and  distant 
light  fades  away.  It  comes  down  to  the  practical,  to 
plain  thinking.  Old  Santa  Claus  is  dead — we  have  lost 
him.  The  "Arabian  Nights"  is  nothing  but  a  series 
of  fables  and  the  imagination  of  childhood  fancies  and 
of  the  zeal  of  youth.  There  is  nothing  to  stir  them  to- 
day. But  let  a  child  grow  up  free  and  untrammeled 
in  its  imaginings.  God  gave  him  imagination,  and  let 
him  cultivate  it. 

But  let  the  child's  imagination  live,  and  it  will  sooner 
or  later  find  out  what  is  false  and  what  is  true.  Let 
him  cherish  those  fancies  of  the  imagination,  and  he 
will  live  for  them  and  die  for  them.  Look  at  that  old 
apostle,  that  old  man  braced  and  marred  in  body,  dim 
in  his  vision,  hobbling  along  through  barbarous  places, 
having  nothing  but  his  gospel;  but  that  was  enough. 

13 


He  went  up  into  the  third  heaven  with  it,  and  he 
brought  back  visions  that  he  never  lost.  They  shut 
him  up  in  prison,  but  the  very  roof  was  lifted  off  and 
he  looked  up  and  saw  the  splendid  visions  that  are  re- 
ported to  us  in  Ephesians.  What  a  splendid  vision  of 
St.  Paul!  The  last  words  he  left  us  were  these:  "I 
am  ready  now  to  be  offered ;  I  know  the  way  I  am  go- 
ing. I  am  ready  to  go.  I  have  fought  a  good  fight 
and  have  conquered.  I  have  finished  the  course,"  not  a 
foot  left  untrod ;  "I  have  kept  the  faith,"  and  never  for 
a  moment  let  it  go.  "Henceforth  there  is  laid  up  for 
me  a  crown  of  righteousness."  The  old  man's  im- 
aginings were  as  bright  as  they  were  the  day  he  saw 
the  light  break  from  the  Syrian  sky.  Young  man, 
young  woman,  we  want  to  bring  you  to  that ;  we  want 
to  train  you  to  follow  the  footsteps  of  Paul,  and  then 
you  will  not  be  looking  at  your  sordid  surroundings. 

Passing  once  over  the  Ba3^  of  Bengal,  a  passenger 
on  a  steamer,  I  was  particularly  struck  with  the  beauti- 
fulness  of  water.  The  sun  was  breaking  down  in  the 
west,  striking  the  water,  which  was  as  clear  as  crystal 
and  as  smooth  as  oil ;  and  gazing  down  into  the  depths 
of  it,  I  thought  forcibly  of  John's  vision  as  the  old  man 
in  Patmos  must  have  seen  it  and  wrote  it  out  for  us. 

Young  man,  we  want  to  get  you  to  have  such  an 
imagination,  such  a  vision  that  you  will  gladly  lift  up 
your  hands  to  the  Master  to  be  taken  in  by  him,  and 
you  will  see  what  Stephen  saw — the  Son  sitting  at  the 
right  hand  of  God  the  Father.  We  want  to  bring  you 
to  a  life  that  shall  have  such  an  end  as  that.  You 
may  have  difficulty,  pain,  trouble,  and  disappointment, 
and  the  cross  may  come  between;  but  if  such  an  end- 
ing as  that  must  come,  let  it  come.  You  will  sing  as 
Paul  did.   You  will  look  out  upon  all  that  lies  ahead, 

14 


unseen  and  unknown,  and,  like  the  apostle,  say:  "I 
am  persuaded,  that  neither  death,  nor  life,  nor  angels, 
nor  principalities,  nor  powers,  nor  things  present,  nor 
things  to  come,  nor  height,  nor  depth,  nor  any  other 
creature,  shall  be  able  to  separate  me  from  the  love  of 
God,  which  is  in  Christ  Jesus  our  Lord."  And  with 
this  song  on  your  lips  you  will  drop  in  His  arms. 

15 


